


Shockwave

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>No.<br/>The release of temporal energy will be quite massive.<br/>This is a hard reset. It will reboot the conditions in your universe well before you began playing the game.<br/>You will have lived different lives after the reset. The different initial conditions will ideally lead to a more favorable scenario in the new session.<br/>Unfortunately, you will have no memory of anything that has happened in the session you are in now. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Shockwave

You are DAVE STRIDER, and you are so fucking tired. You’ve fought hard and long, you’ve suffered through seeing your brother’s corpse and hearing from the other side about how your friend’s friends all got bisected by some psychopathic clown and a stupid hipster. You’ve seen yourself die more times than you ever needed or wanted, and you’re pretty sure you’re older than you need to be.

In a way, this is a relief. You’re not just dying. There will be no dream bubble shenanigans for you, no dicking around in the afterlife with regrets piling up. And no slowly turning into a tentacled monstrosity, either. No. You will simply never have existed at all.

Though maybe not quite. You stand on the crack your brother started, red light shining up from below, and you consider what Rose told you.

  
_There will be a you. But he won’t be... you, precisely._   
  
  
_what the fuck is that supposed to mean  
you know what  
nevermind  
i dont care  
im tired of this bullshit_   


For the first time in your life, you allow yourself to cry openly. There’s no one left to see it, after all. You wonder, briefly, if this is how Davesprite felt.

You take the needles, and you -

 _scratch_

You are JADE STRIDER, and you aren’t even bothering to hide the tears. They freeze solid on your cheeks. You’re a goddess and you can’t even do a fucking thing about this. No more irony. No more laughs. And to think you once thought John’s dog was kind of cool. I mean, unstoppable devilbeast? Who wouldn’t want that?

God, fuck, past you was such an idiot.

You sit down in the snow and the wind plays with your hair. The gears creak and shake, rust falling along with the snowflakes as it always does in the LAND OF GEARS AND SNOW. Suspended in the air here is a tiny sphere - this whole chamber is a gigantic atom bomb. In your hands is a neutron rifle.

Your hands tremble as you raise the gun. You know you won’t be you anymore when this finishes. You’re not sure how you feel about that. You think Bro might be alive if you do - Dave (Dave, you idiot, is this really the only way?) said that Scratch said that the world would be shaken from the beginning, that _nothing_ would be the same, but you’re not so sure. In the infinite possibilities, surely some things have to stay constant? He did say there’d be another  Jade, at least. Somehow.

You shake your head. There’s nothing for it, now.

You pull the trigger and -

 _scratch_

You are JOHN STRIDER, and oh fuck oh god the ticking the ticking and fuck when Jade told you about how Scratch was apparently Cal no no not the fucking laughing echoing about in the LAND OF CLOCKS AND SHADOW. And always you keep looking out for that flash of green, you could hear the fight all the way on the other side of this horrible planet, and fuck, just. Fuck fuck fuck.

You’re not afraid at all. Pranks and gambits? Skateboarding? Delirious biznasty off the handle? No way. You lost your cool a long time ago. You don’t even hesitate as you climb up to the plateau with that stupid fucking whack-a-ghost game. And there’s not even a pause as you

 _scratch_

You are ROSE STRIDER and your friend DAVE HARLEY did not prototype with his dog BECQUEREL based on your sound counsel. Dude listened to you. That was good.

But you still don’t fucking know how he blew up his goddamn Forge. You mean _jesus_ Harley how did you even.

It’s thus that you’re standing before a vast tapestry in the center of the LAND OF FOG AND SPRING. You thought it looked out of place in this old-world metropolis, this maze of city streets and clocktowers and mist, but now that you look at it, the pattern showing the visage of a Squiddle gazing down at you, it makes sense.

It’s quite simple. You’re to frog this thing.

But not before making a few changes.

It will be different this time.

You’re sorry about Dave, that this will now be his burden and his alone, but surely he’ll understand when the time comes. In the meantime, you weave a few extra items into the tapestry first, some blacker threads, before ultimately taking your Ruby Ribbitar and

 _scratch_

Your name is DAIIV STIGANDR and suddenly you understand jack shit.

You’re not sure how those yahoos in the other universe managed to send a fucking indestructible demon over here, but fuck if you’re going to let that go. You’re fucking DAIIV STIGANDR, you’re a rebel, you’re flame and fury, and you won’t stand for this shit. You stand on the BEAT MESA with the QUILLS OF ECHIDNA and you can hear that asshole coming but you grin at the sky.

You’re getting your revenge. You play a few fly beats first, changing the texture of the surface. You’ll switch a few people around. Let that asshole SOLOMON CAPUCINE feel what it’s like to be you, let KARL VALCAV know what it is to be JAHAN EADBEHRT. The others were harder, but you settled for KAREN MARYANN being JAIID HARLEAH and TERI PIERCE as ROHEZE LELLENDE. Not matches, and part of you thinks of flipping it turn-ways, but maybe the difference is what’ll make it sweet.

And then you drag a the rest of the twelve into it, weaving a bit of your misfortunes into each one. ARIANA MENDELLE first...

Only you don’t have time. You hear the beating of fell wings. And you know that JAHAN has succumbed to his ancestry, that ROHEZE has listened too long to the Horrorterrors, and they’re coming for your blood, too. You can only get eight in, and sloppily too.

Whatever. The new beat is set into the grooves. That will change the way the reset universe feels when you at last take your needles and

 _scratch_

You are SAIIVUX CAPANDR and your life has thus far been monumentally confusing, since there are eight players on your side and eight more in the other universe, somehow, and one of them, DONY STRITOR, has the same color as you which makes no damn sense, and actually three of the others are a lot like three of your friends, and you feel like you’ve been somehow split in two.

Twos. That seems... significant? Somehow. You don’t know. You’re not sure. Does it matter? ANYIRA said that DONY and she were... something? To fix this.

You don’t know anymore. ERZAHN did something to your head, and now nothing makes sense anymore. You’re bleeding out of the ears as  JOHKAT holds your head and tells you that it’s going to be fine.

You’re so preoccupied that you don’t even notice someone on the other side causing the -

 _scratch_

Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR and you have bigger things on your mind than figuring out why this INSUFFERABLE PRICK seems so fucking familiar. You resolve never to talk to him, because really, what a douche. You don't have time for that. You're too busy dealing with the fact that Karkat is babbling something about how he thinks he’s black for himself. You inform him that such an idea is almost as stupid as his blackcrush on John.

Somehow, you feel like you’ve been through this before.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic uses a bunch of altkids, including the Dave Lalonde and Jade Strider from Violetesence.
> 
> yep.


End file.
